Social Media Ethics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Social Media Ethics - Essay Example This essay declares that the use of social media sites posed little danger to personal confidential information. However, as the world of social media became popular, social media sites like twitter and Facebook raised the availability of its products opening ways to new members and networks. The emergence of social media invited an ethical response that view technology as a monolithic power with different vector of impact and influence, one that can either impoverish or constrain human experience of actual world in particular manner. This paper discusses that in the current information age we live in, people have found social media networks to be an indispensable tool for connecting and communicating with each other. It is morally permissible for a person to disseminate information obtained via social media networks with the intention of creating a character profile because through social networks, public forums, media sharing websites and blogs that we are able to create interactive dialogues with others to share experiences and any important information. Despite this, some people argued that it is unethical to share information obtained from social media networks because they believe that social media would slowly fade away in turn exposing their information to dangerous people who might use the information to harm others. Social media continues to grow not just, because it allows people to connect quickly with others but also it provides users with the options of choosing when to connect, whom to connect with and what to share. The networks and ever-connected devices give the answer on the ‘how’ to share information. People on the other hand provide the answer to the question of ‘why’ they share (Wilkins and Patterson 2010, 56-59). Currently, social media serves various purposes among them blogging, collaborative and group interactions, product and service reviews, job interviews, entertainment, selling and buying, advertising and professional networking, to name but a few. From a business perspective, social media has offered businesses of all sizes a â€Å"large variety of opportunities to promote their products, services, and brands.   Ã‚  2The advent of social media such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Youtube has seen millions of people from all over the globe connect, create, and share content like never before (Wilkins and Patterson 71-74). The numerous videos, news, status updates, video views, and comments clearly reflect the enormous participatio n of people in such social networking sites. It is not bad for people especially businesses to use social media for marketing purposes since the essence of marketing is getting the information to reach as many people as possible (Wilkins and Patterson 2010, 79). From a utilitarian perspective, what is of most value and importance is happiness and pleasure. Pain and unhappiness are the things most sought to be avoided. An act is good to the extent that it promotes happiness and bad to the extent that it promotes unhappiness. The way that this is applied as a moral theory guiding one’s actions is that the morally right action is the one, which produces the most happiness, taking into account everyone who will be affected. Another way to say this is that the right action is t